You don’t know me. Out of 30 years of silence and earning my Masters degree, studying religion and mythology side-by-side, and considering all the contradictions in the bible, I realized it is all made up like all of the other ancient religions and mythologies.

You need your religion to get through life, I don’t. I am happier now and more content than at any time in my entire life and I am going to be 52 this year…raised three children and have a wonderful husband. Life is good.

Peace to you.

But you are right, you will keep going back to your same arguments and I will always keep going back to the Bible. I guess I am also done with this discussion with you.

Carl Sagan is dead…his legacy and memory lives on.

ALL religions have ancient texts. Big deal. It proves nothing. I wouldn’t want to believe in it anyway…considering how this god is a baby killer, people killer, tormenter, teaser. This god could have set up the world any way it wanted, but he chose violence…starting with a violence in heaven before humans were created. According to the bible this god planned everything the way it is…so this god is just a dick. He chose to make flawed humans…and allow satan out of the pit to run free…and satan seems like a much nicer character in the bible than this revengeful and hateful god. (Just like most gods of mythology…he plays games with his mortal subjects. Most people disregard the OT, thank goodness because it’s all FICTION.

You have no proof of this god’s existence…your bible is written by flawed humans and is a jumble of violence, porn, poetry, history, mythology, and so on. You pick and choose what you want to believe from it like a smorgasborg.

I believe in the GOODNESS of humankind. For the most part humans are good and do not deserve whatever you believe they and you yourself deserve. It is absurd to think that an all powerful being is so needy as to create creatures to bow down to him, and then set them up with a temptation, and then punish them and every generation after for falling for his set-up. Absurd. Just think about how absurd it really is.

I am done with this circular argument.

God did give us the correct story Himself–it’s called the Bible.

You’re right, He could have chosen angels to give His message, but he chose His flawed sinful followers to give the message to the flawed sinful lost.

Yes, I have…many, many times, mostly on the parts of the mourners left behind. They fall apart…need valium..need to call their pastor. Instead of celebrating the life of the deceased and happy that they are off to the great beyond with their heavenly sky daddy they fall apart.

I have seen xians with all this professed faith COLLAPSE OVER COFFINS…which is quite freaky and yes, undignified.

I was there the day my brother-in-law died at age 35 from Lou Gehrig’s disease…he went in dignity and without a pastor or church involved. My grandfather was an atheist and he said not to be afraid, this was life and how things are to be in the cycle of life. I learned MUCH more about dignity and grace from atheists and agnostics than I have any xian in my whole 30 something years of being a xian.

You also say that Christians are masochistic sitting in church week after week hearing how bad we are. That is not why I go, I already know how bad I am and the Bible says “there is none righteous no not one–for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God!” It also says “The wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ the Lord.” I go to church to worship the God that has forgiven my sins and given me eternal life even though I’m not deserving of it.

Mueleski - I have heard this ten million times if I have heard it once. If you truly believe this, why must you go week after week to have it repeatedly hammered into your brain? Why not walk in this wonderful world amongst the trees and feel the breeze upon your face instead of sitting in a room full of borg and reciting the brainwashing liturgy? If you keep going to these services, you will continue to be programmed. It’s the same old thing, week after week. Once you are away from it, you start thinking for yourself and it’s quite refreshing and wonderful.

Also, don’t you know how annoying it is to people to have bible thumpers bother them IN THEIR OWN HOME? Why don’t you just leave us alone? That is my big pet peeve with xians. That is what pisses people off so much. You don’t have the answers yourselves about your own religion. Who the hell are you to think you have all the right to tell people how to live? You could be 100% WRONG about everything.(I know in my mind that you ARE wrong, but need a crutch.)

If this message was so damed important, why would an all-powerful being send his FLAWED creatures to witness for him when they can’t even get the story straight amongst themselves? If the message was “life or death” for his dear creatures you would think he would want to tell the CORRECT story HIMSELF. But, we know why he doesn’t…BECAUSE HE DOESN’T EXIST.

Throughout the ages, humans have been afraid to die and cannot outsmart nature…therefore they create ways to cope with the knowledge of their inevitable end. A crutch…a coping device. Some of us don’t need that. We are content in our acceptance of how life is.
Why can’t you respect that?

You have mentioned a few times of how would Christians like it if you came to their door and challenged them and their beliefs in God. I don’t think it would go over to well with a lot of folks, I think you can tell that by some of the posts that get put on here. I wouldn’t be offended and would welcome the discussion, but could imagine that if I thought I was being particularly singled out it would get on my nerves. I have gone door to door witnessing quite often and never knew who I was going to meet in the house or what their belief is, and have never said to myself “self, an Athiest lives there, go bother them!” Also, there is no way that I could know that you were just visited last week, or an hour ago, by Mormons or Jehova Witnesses. Why do I go door to door then? I go not to “force” my “religion” on someone but in hopes of finding someone who is seeking the truth but doesn’t know were to go to get it. (Don’t say it, I think I know what your thinking, but remember in my mind I do have the truth.)

Now this statement of yours I don’t understand: “Xians want to believe in their mythology because they are afraid to DIE” and “.. most xians have a harder time with death than atheists do.” I’m not sure were you get that information. You state it like a known and irrefutable fact, and I have heard and seen quite the opposite. If someone really believes that we leave this world and go in to the presence of our Blessed Saviour, I don’t think they would be holding on that hard to this. Now, personally I don’t look forward to the process of death, unless it’s death during sleep, that probably won’t be to bad, but I don’t fear deaths aftermath. Death, after all is just a seperation not an ending.

You also say, “Your faith does you no good, however, since you weep louder than the heathens when you are diagnosed with a terminal illness, or when one of your believer relatives or friends die.” I take it that you have personally witnessed this? I have, once again, seen the opposite and have witnessed people face their terminal illness and death with dignity and faith.

You also say that Christians are masochistic sitting in church week after week hearing how bad we are. That is not why I go, I already know how bad I am and the Bible says “there is none righteous no not one–for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God!” It also says “The wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ the Lord.” I go to church to worship the God that has forgiven my sins and given me eternal life even though I’m not deserving of it.

You want to somehow preserve your life forever. Your faith does you no good, however, since you weep louder than the heathens when you are diagnosed with a terminal illness, or when one of your believer relatives or friends die. You CLING to this world. IF you really believed in all that bunk, it seems to me that you all would be joyous about death.(It’s a good thing you don’t…that can be dangerous as the fundamentalist muslims show us with their suicide bombers)

Death to atheists is accepted as the nature of things…the cycle of life. We are sad, sure…but we don’t claim to have some magical kingdom waiting for us.

Xians are also machochistic…sitting in church week after week after week hearing how very BAD you are….bad bad bad.
Really..you are not bad, and an invisible being is not going to strike you with a lightning bolt or send you to a lava pit if you question your ingrained and indoctrinated beliefs.